Ann Reid (Teleos) asked me about proposal funding at NIST, the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (formerly NBS). I
said that I didn't know of any such activity, and that NIST's main
role was coordination of industry groups that are trying to
establish standards. NIST also does some in-house research,
especially when they can get industry support.

Alfred Rosenblatt's article in The Institute (May/June '91)
shows that I was wrong. The Commerce Department has been using
NIST as their channel for Advanced Technology Program grants.
Last year's competition for $9M produced 249 proposals and 11
winners (five consortia, six independent companies).
Communication Intelligence Corp. (Menlo Park) won $671,000 to
develop a user-independent handwriting recognition system; other
awards were all related to hardware, optics, and device physics.

This year's late-spring competition will be for $39.5M. If
NIST has the same experience as NSF, few of this year's proposals
will be recycled. This is foolish. The cream has been skimmed,
so the second-rank proposals will be the best that remain eligible
-- especially since the proposers have had an additional year to
prepare. The judges will also be different, and the tendency will
be to make awards in different areas from those that won the first
time around. So, if you're working on a precompetitive technology
of U.S. commercial importance, get in there and compete!

IBM is countering NEC's dominance of the Japanese PC market by
licensing IBM operating systems to eleven Japanese companies.
This could double the market for IBM-compatible software in two
years. [George Watson, The Institute, May/June '91.]

ATR International (Kyoto) is developing an English/Japanese
voice-translation system with funding from more than 100
companies. Technical assistance will come from SRI, Stanford,
CMU, and Manchester University. NEC has also developed such a
system, based on speaker-independent recognition of continuous
Japanese half-syllables. A proposed use of voice translation is
in television receivers. [Lori Valigra, The Institute.]

IntelliCorp (Mountain View) is planning a Mac version of
KAPPA-PC ($3,500) for this summer. Leor Jacob (AIA and A.I.
Novation) finds KAPPA-PC a joy to use for mid-size expert systems.
An application of 5,000 objects requires only 2MB RAM, and links
are available to C and Windows DDE. [AIA Journal, May-June '91.]

Average salaries for IEEE members rose 5% last year, versus 4%
the year before. IEEE's 1991 survey, available to members in May
for $74.95, will include a regression equation based on about 30
variables. [The Institute.]

Source Engineering, a recruiting firm, is offering its 12-page
1991 Engineering Salary Survey and Career Planning Guide for free.
Their direct-mail ad mentions the SF Bay area, but the survey was
probably national. To get a copy -- and to enter their database
-- call (408) 738-8440 or write to 1290 Oakmead Parkway, Suite
318, Sunnyvale, CA 94086. Or check for a local branch.

Working Mother magazine rated Apple (Cupertino), IBM, and the
SAS Institute (Cary, NC) among the 10 U.S. companies with the best
parental benefits. At&t, Bellcore, DEC, and Xerox were in the top
75. [Karen Fitzgerald, The Institute, May/June '91.]

Information Access Co., a leading supplier of reference materials
and indexes, is advertising for programmer analysts with three
years of C experience -- especially database compression,
retrieval, and graphics. 362 Lakeside Dr., Foster City, CA 94404.

The National University of Singapore has taken out a full-page
ad in CACM (3/91, p. 132) for its Institute of Systems Science.
It is seeking ISS Fellows and senior research management people in
AI, NLP, and multimedia. (isshycg@nusvm.bitnet)

If you prefer France, the new THESEUS graduate management
school in Sophia-Antipolis is advertising for Ph.D. faculty in
information and networking technologies. [CACM, 3/91.]

The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)
at Saarbruecken is looking for LISP/PROLOG-fluent researchers for
the "AKA-Mod" (Modeling Cooperative Agents) project. Dr. H.J.
Mueller (mueller@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de). [DAI-List.]

ERIM has recently implemented a doctoral fellowship program in
conjunction with UMichigan/EECS. ERIM is also advertising in AI
Magazine for research scientists in advanced image analysis.

Spain: Dr. Vincente Lopez (lopez@emdcci11.bitnet or .earn) is
seeking candidates for a 1991 neural-network postoc. The
Instituto de Ingeniera del Conocimiento is an R&D institute at the
Univeristy Autonoma de Madrid concerned with research in expert
systems and neural networks. Starting gross salary is up to
3.000.000 pts per annum. [Neuron Digest.]

UBirmingham is looking for a Lecturer in Human-Computer
Interaction. Contact edmondsonwh@vax1.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk.
[NL-KR.]

Abstracts in Human-Computer Interaction is a new quarterly
journal from Ergosyst Associates, (913) 842-7334. The same
company publishes Keyguide to Information Sources in Artificial
Intelligence/Expert Systems, 1990, 277 pp., $70. [AI Magazine.]

The Japan Personal Computer Software Association (JPSA) has
compiled a 300-page report, "Japan's Personal Computer Software
Market." Prospects look good for foreign software. The English
version is available for $495 from Implements Inc., 6 Brook Trail
Road, Wayland, MA 01778-3706; (508) 358-5858. [Spectrum, 4/91.]
(The Japanese have traditionally relied on custom systems, but are
beginning to see the advantages of well-supported mass-market
systems. Foreign software is also becoming fashionable.)

The Japan Information Processing Development Center (JIPDEC)
publishes a government-sponsored Survey of the Japanese Artificial
Intelligence Technology Demand Trends. Translations of the 1987-8
and 1988-9 surveys, which include robotics and image/voice
recognition, are available from Mrs. Verla Weaver, NTIS ((703)
487-7079) for $250 each, or $400 for the set. [AI Magazine.]

If you plan to market software, you might check out the
Software Entrepreneurs' Forum (SEF) and their newsletter. Call
(415) 854-7219 for a free copy.

Matt Ginsberg (Stanford) has made his MVL theorem prover available
over the internet. See the Spring 1991 AI Magazine, p.13.

Wesley R. Elsberry (elsberry@evax.uta.edu) runs the Central
Neural System BBS, a direct-dial source of neural-network
information and software. He also offers FidoNet/EchoMail access
nationwide, and will dump information to diskettes at little cost.

AI Expert magazine runs a forum on CompuServe, at GO AIEXPERT.
It's a good way to get source code from the magazine's articles,
as well as access to online discussions. There are 14 regional
phone numbers, including Ontario and Switzerland.

VPI's Center for Innovative Technology (with help from Nimbus and
others) publishes a series of free CD-ROM databases. Virginia
Disc One (VAD1) can be read on any system, but its TOPIC
browsing/retrieval software runs only under DOS. VAD1 contains
6000 files (600 megabytes), with more than 30 searchable
databases: USDA Extension collections; ACM's Guide to the
Computing Literature; Computer World texts; bibliographies;
archives of IRList and AIList; the King James Bible; a list of
English words, etc. VAD2 contains mainly library collections.
VAD3 is for Macs running A/UX, and contains mainly UNIX-type
software. Contact Dr. Edward A. Fox (fox@fox.cs.vt.edu).

ACM is marketing a PC-based CD ROM bibliography covering the
last decade of computing literature. You get over 93,000
book/paper citations from 475 periodicals plus 9,000 full-text
reviews, including page images of tables and formulas. $799 to
members. (212) 869-7440.

I don't know know the current status, but Charles Wilson at
NIST has been compiling a database of handwriting samples from lab
notebooks. (301) 975-2080.

Inside Information, a hierarchically structured software
dictionary, has been reviewed by Phillip Robinson (San Jose
Mercury). The program eats 3.5 megabytes of hard disk, coverage
is incomplete, definitions are too short, and the reverse
dictionary function (looking up words by meaning) often fails to
find a match. Phillip judged the program less useful than an
online encyclopedia, but a CD-ROM version might be worth the $119
list price. (Microlytics will soon publish Word Menu, an expanded
database in book form.) (716) 249-9150.

GO Corporation (Foster City) has recently made its PenPoint
operating system available to hardware and software developers.
PenPoint offers a graphic "notebook" interface -- yes, with pages
and edge tabs, as well as icons, menus, and pop-up windows --
built around pen manipulation and handwritten input. (Keyboards
will be optional). Each notebook page is associated with an
application program, just as Mac files are tied to their
applications. Mobile professionals are the target market -- truck
drivers, meter readers, claims agents, salesmen, interviewers --
but I see potential for home, school, and business markets when
the hardware becomes cheap enough.

PenPoint is 4 MB of object-oriented code intended to run in
anything from a shirt-pocket steno pad to a wall-sized display
board. The operating system interfaces with PCs and Macintoshes,
and operations such as printing are automatically queued until
docked to the right hardware.

According to Bill Campbell (president and CEO, Informix board
member, and recently president/CEO of Claris), PenPoint's system
calls are more comprehensive and integrated than those of the
Macintosh toolbox. The code is also fully object-oriented.
Programmers needed a year to switch from DOS or UNIX to the Mac.
PenPoint should be easier to learn, with application development
taking only 8-12 months (vs. 18 months for just an upgrade on the
Mac) and requiring only 200K or so of code.

Several companies, including GRiD, are interested in building
compatible notebook computers. (GO Corp. won't have the same lock
on product lines and profits as Apple has had.) New companies
such as Slate and PenSoft are developing applications, enjoying
the lack of entrenched competition. If you're just starting as a
software developer, this might be a good opportunity. [Condensed
from a 4/15 MicroTimes article by Mary Eisenhart.]

You can rent a computer system, delivered anywhere in the U.S.,
for as little as $126 per month by calling the Personal Computer
Rental Corporation, (800) 444-9930. You might save money, though,
by buying a used computer and then selling it when you're finished.
(For long-term business use, you can deduct depreciation
on your U.S. income taxes. If purchased new, there is a full deduction
for the first $10,000 of equipment each year.) Be sure
that you don't leave valuable data on any computer that you return
or sell. Just erasing the files, or even initializing the disk,
won't provide total security. (Apple once lost a new operating
system when a reporter bought one of their used office Macs.)

When selling a computer, don't give out your home address to
anyone you can't identify. Thieves sometimes target advertised
computer systems and the upgrades that are replacing them.
(Discussion of expensive home computer/stereo systems on network
bboards has also been known to trigger burglaries.) To show the
system in your home, ask to call back with an appointment time.
Call several hours later, at a random time, to be sure that the
prospect isn't using a public phone. (Anyone knowing your name,
city, and phone number can look you up in the phone book, though.)

Protect your home computer by inscribing your driver's license
number on the outside and inside of the case. Keep a set of backup
disks off-site to protect against both fire and theft. Your
address list and other critical files should be kept in triplicate,
since floppies and hard disks do fail. (In fact, it's part
of the normal life cycle.) Data recovery, if possible, can take
weeks and cost hundreds of dollars. Repair personnel have also
been known to keep copies of files they find on your disks.

Take special care with encrypted files or disk partitions,
since a single-bit error may trash the data. If a floppy does
fail, don't stick your only backup in the drive until you've verified
that the drive itself is not at fault. Also, keep your backup
disks locked; never take a chance on infecting them with a
virus.

Sometimes it's the index to your backup set that fails. (I've
had this happen.) If so, you'll have trouble recovering your data
unless files are stored in an independently readable form. I use
DiskFit for the Macintosh, which stores readable files and uses a
near-minimal number of disks. (I've heard that Redux is even better.)
Another protection is to alternate two or more backup sets
-- plus periodic archival sets to guard against writing a newly
corrupted file to all your backups!

A collection split between floppies and a hard disk can be
very difficult to maintain. There are shareware cataloging programs,
of course, but the conceptual problem of tracking what
backs up what (i.e., version control) is not solved by cataloging.
I recommend the following. Whenever you get new software, lock
and then copy each disk -- anything worth keeping is worth keeping
in duplicate. (Avoid copy-protected software; it will eventually
fail, and then what will you do?) These copies become your primary
set, with the original disks as a first backup. Keep the originals
in a different room from the computer, just in case thieves
take all the disks in your office. Make a second backup of any
disks that are particularly valuable or irreplaceable, and keep
them off-site in case of fire, earthquake, or even seizure by
IRS/Federal agents.

Now -- or during the previous copy steps -- put any files that
you need onto your hard disk as a working set. Omit files that
you don't need -- or seldom need -- and never load an extra copy
of the operating system. The only "primary" files on your hard
disk will be data files that you create, and these can be copied
to "working backup" floppies when you first write the files or at
the end of each day. Periodically make extra copies of these
working floppies to store with your primary and backup sets.

With this system, you really don't need a backup of your entire
hard disk. Nor do you need special recovery programs like
SUM Guardian, MacTools MIRROR, or Complete Undelete. Still,
they're a comfort -- and the backup programs can help if you want
to repartition your disk, defragment files, or restore a pre-virus
state. Unfortunately, it takes at least an hour and 40 DS/DD
floppies to back up a 40MB hard disk. Times the number of backup
sets. That's a lot of floppies, but it's cheaper than losing
data. [Buy mail-order floppies, in bulk. MEI/Micro Center ((800)
634-3478) sells 3.5" DS/DD disks for about $.41 delivered. If any
fail to initialize, they'll ship you replacements. Store prices
are two to five times as much, with perhaps another eight cents
per gummed label. (!) Discount brands are almost as reliable as
name brands, and any floppy that accepts initialization is unlikely
to give you trouble for at least three years.]

A second hard disk can simplify backing up the first one (if
you can spare the space), but creates additional problems if you
fill up its larger store with new files. If I ever win the lottery,
I'll invest in a cartridge drive (about $600, plus $80 per
45MB cartridge). Thank goodness 600MB CD ROMs don't need backups.

Tod also says that it's easy to get a technical book
published. Almost any technical publisher (e.g., Elsevier,
Pergamon, Kluwer, Academic Press, Springer-Verlag) will publish a
book recommended by one of its technical editors. A good place to
hunt for a publisher is "publisher's row" at any large technical
conference and trade show. Editors, mostly professors and
industrial researchers, are listed in the flyleaves of books.
Laveen Kanal (UMaryland), for example, is an Elsevier technical
editor for pattern recognition, artificial intelligence, and other
topics.

Don't expect to make any money from the book, but writing is
an "easy" way to get publicity and establish technical credibility
-- if you have a book topic. Many publishers, especially Kluwer,
will publish your manuscript right off your laser printer, without
typesetting and without editorial review -- at least if you have
any credibility in publication circles (e.g., a track record of
professional journal publications, or a senior research position).

[If you need to make money from the book, consider self-publishing.
Books are available that teach how to do it, and any
book printer will be happy to work with you. (Avoid vanity presses,
though.) Most of the work is done by the time you have camera-ready
copy from your laser printer -- but consult with your
printer first. The key to sales is to notify standard announcement
channels and send out review copies prior to the official
publication date. You can get a run of 500 to 2000 copies for a
few dollars per copy, delivered to your [tax-deductible!] garage.
Book jobbers and sales reps will expect discounts of 40% or so,
but the profit per copy can still be substantial. You are likely
to make more from personal effort than from routine distribution
by a major publisher. If the book really succeeds, you can sell
out to a publisher with broad distribution channels.]